Buffy S. Ellsworth, Ph.D., has joined the faculty at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Carbondale as an assistant professor of physiology.

She recently completed a five-year postdoctoral fellowship in human genetics at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor (2007).

Ellsworth earned her doctorate degree in cell and molecular biology at Colorado State University in Fort Collins (2002) and her master’s in biology and bachelor’s degrees in general chemistry and in microbiology, all at South Dakota State University in Brookings (1997, 1996, 1995).

She is a 2004 recipient of the National Institutes of Health Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award for individual postdoctoral fellowships from the National Institutes of Health. Her research interests include the role of genes in normal pituitary development and function as well as pituitary diseases. She has authored 17 abstracts and journal articles. Her memberships include Gamma Sigma Delta.

A native of South Dakota, Ellsworth and her husband, Greg Ellsworth, have one daughter, Alana Serene Ellsworth.

The mission of SIU School of Medicine is to assist the citizens of central and southern Illinois in meeting their health-care needs through education, patient care, research and service to the community.